Reflections of Dark Shadows: Mirror, Mirror
by Higuchimon
Summary: Kouji doesn't have a brother. Only his reflection looks like him. And perhaps not quite even that... [complete]
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Mirror, Mirror  
 **Characters:** Kouji, Kouichi, Takuya|| **Romance:** Takuya x Kouji/Kouji x Takuya, non-incestual Kouichi x Kouji  
 **Chapter Word Count:** 1,426||Story Word Count: 1,426|| **Chapter Count:** 1/7  
 **Genre:** Supernatural, Drama|| **Rated:** PG-13  
 **Notes:** This is an AU.  
 **Challenges:** Diversity Writing, H10, multichap with at least 6 chapters; Chapter Set Boot Camp, #20, 7 chapters; Secret Santa Fic Exchange 2016  
 **Summary:** Kouji doesn't have a brother. Only his reflection looks like him. And perhaps not quite even that...

* * *

"I think that mirror's looking at me," Takuya said, lifting his head from where he'd been snuggled up against Kouji. Kouji let out a long, deep sigh and pulled his boyfriend closer to him.

"If you're going to talk, say something intelligent. Otherwise, I can think of a lot better things for you to do."

Takuya started to open his mouth again, until Kouji's fingers tightened on his arm with a hint of warning. Kouji wasn't always in the mood, but when he _was_ in the mood, he wanted to get things done, and Takuya knew better than to delay.

But the mirror _did_ look as if it were looking at him. Most mirrors did, after all. Whatever reflected in them tended to look at whatever the person reflected did. Right now that was Kouji's back, delightfully bare and sleekly muscled and he really should be paying far more attention to it than he was to that foggy reflection.

That was something else that bothered Takuya, but with the way Kouji grabbed at his collar and pulled him over for a heated kiss, he didn't have time to think about it. Not when there were so many other interesting things for him to think about. Or not think about, as the case may well have been.

 **Mine...**

Under other circumstances, Takuya might have heard that single word that hung in the air for a heartbeat or two. But these were not those circumstances and so the word was not heard by anyone save the one who spoke it.

* * *

Kouji lay back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. Takuya curled up to one side, tucked underneath Kouji's arm and snoring fit to wake the dead.

 _I should throw him out._

Kouji knew he wouldn't, though. As much as Takuya got on his nerves in many, many ways, he couldn't imagine his life without the idiot.

 _Don't think I want to, either._ Maybe one day he'd get around to imagining it and finding out if it was worth the effort. Assuming he could even get rid of Takuya if he wanted to. The guy clung harder than static cling.

He started to close his eyes, then frowned. A small tingle of something _unusual_ began to slide around his spine and work its way up his neck. A warning a lot like what he felt when someone stared at him from across the street, that was what it felt like. Like he was being watched.

Kouji dropped his gaze to Takuya, wondering if he'd woken up, but saw only Takuya's chest going up and down in peaceful slumber. He looked around; he'd pulled all the curtains before he and Takuya got down to the hot and heavy stuff, and none of them had been pulled back. Not to mention he lived on the fifth floor of his apartment building. There weren't many people who would crawl up that high to stare at someone.

Not that he thought no one would do it, but he didn't think anyone would want to do that to stare at _him_.

But there was still that sense, that feeling of presence, of someone watching him. He looked around; had something been left on somewhere? Nothing seemed to be.

Then he caught sight of the mirror and gave it a careful look. _Takuya said it was looking at him._

He rolled his eyes a heartbeat later, dismissing the whole thing as he started to make himself more comfortable. Mirrors didn't look at people, not like that.

From where he sat, though, he could see his reflection, kind of. The mirror wasn't a very good mirror. He'd found it at a thrift store, stuck in the back underneath a ratty blanket, and decided he would get it. The mirror frame was really what got his attention more than anything else, carved of some kind of dark wood he didn't recognize into designs that he almost thought changed shape when he wasn't looking.

But the glass part of it he wanted to get taken out and changed the first chance that he had. It wasn't very clear, three-quarters covered with a film that no amount of scrubbing with any glass cleaner he'd found could get off.

Oddly enough, that didn't seem to stop it from reflecting. What he saw wasn't always clear, but when the sunlight hit it just right, it was as if the glass reflected perfectly.

Kouji thought there was something off about all of it, but it was a mirror. It reflected things, even if it didn't do it very well all the time. What else did he need it for?

He reached out one hand to brush across the surface of it. Most mirrors he'd touched held a vague chill to them, or were at best room temperature. This one wasn't: it was as warm as human skin.

Slowly he raised his head enough so that he could meet his own eyes in the mirror. He'd never considered himself a vain person, but every now and then he found himself losing track of time as he watched his reflection. Sometimes he even thought that he saw his reflection moving ever so slightly in ways that he didn't.

The reflection he watched now moved, just a tiny bit, and Kouji pulled himself away from the mirror at once, turning his back on it and tucking himself around Takuya.

 _I'm too sleepy for this,_ he grumped to himself, closing his eyes. He'd probably already drifted off and this was some kind of weird dream, sparked by Takuya's silly mouthing off earlier. He'd have to rage at him about this later, when they weren't asleep.

Behind him, the mirror kept on watching.

* * *

Outside, the moon slipped below the horizon and only starlight filled the skies. None of that passed into Kouji's apartment, shielded by the curtains as it was. This meant that Takuya and Kouji both slept far into the next day, worn out by their exertions, and undisturbed by the rising sun.

Takuya woke up first. He blinked a few times, yawning, and stretched as far as he could, looking all around. Everything looked about like they'd left it, except that Kouji had rolled away from him in the night and now slept turned toward that mirror.

 _I know it's supposed to be bad luck, but I don't think I'd care of that thing got broken._

Wrinkling his nose at it, he pushed himself to his feet and wandered his way to the small kitchenette, eager for a cup of hot coffee. It wasn't as good as what would come from a really good coffee shop, but Takuya wanted something he could wake up to before he took the time to enjoy something for the taste of it.

The way the mirror had been set up, Takuya could see the back of it from where he sat waiting for the coffee to get ready. Seeing it like this didn't really make it any better, in his opinion. If anything, it looked a little stranger, shaped almost like…

Takuya blinked, rubbed his eyes, and looked again. The mirror looked just as it always had, kind of big and blocky, not really that attractive unless you were Kouji and liked it for some reason Takuya couldn't fathom at all. But for a few seconds, he'd almost thought…

 _No. I'm just not awake yet._ He needed that coffee more than he'd thought, clearly.

It didn't take too long for the coffee to finish brewing, and by then Kouji started to stir and look around for either Takuya or the source of that smell. Takuya wasn't sure which, so he satisfied both options by bringing two cups of coffee back to the sofa and settling down next to Kouji. Then he turned bratty.

"Good morning!" He declared as brightly as he could, setting one cup down on the table before he took a drink of his own. "Did you sleep well?"

Kouji shot a glare at him through sleep-riddled eyes before reaching for the coffee cup in front of him. "People have died for being perky in the morning, Takuya."

"Yes, but you won't do that to me. You love me."

"When you talk to me in the morning, I start to wonder why." Kouji drank down half the cup in one gulp and got up to head into the kitchen.

As he passed the mirror, a shadow moved within it, uncast by any source of light, and Takuya decided that he needed another cup of coffee.

 **To Be Continued**

 **Note:** I've got a lot of fun (and evil) things planned for the rest of this story. I'm going to _try_ to update it on Saturdays but I can't be perfectly sure.

So, yes, Kouji is an only child here. But fear not, Kouichi fans. He's going to be around... in fact, you've kind of already met him. I'm not entirely sure if I will use all the ideas I've had or not. It may creep up a tad to a bit more adult, but I can't say for certain and I will try to warn before that happens. Depends on how the ideas flow.

So, what do you think is up with that mirror?


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Word Count:** 1,444||Story Word Count: 2,870|| **Chapter Count:** 2/7

* * *

He pressed his fingers against his side of the mirror, wishing with every ounce of himself that he could press through and find himself on the other side.

The world of mortals… the world where _he_ lived…

He. The one who looked like him but wasn't him.

He didn't know the other's name. He could only watch. Could only see, never hear or feel.

He saw a great deal. He saw far more than those who had sealed him in here would ever imagine that he could see. And he wanted out. He wanted to do more than see, he wanted to taste and touch and know and sate that hunger that filled every part of himself.

And he wanted to do that with him, the one who bore his face, his mirror image.

The mirror image of a mirror ghost.

It was fate.

He'd never believed in fate before. He didn't think he had, anyway. He'd never thought hard enough about it to know. It hadn't mattered then.

As the unceasing years rolled by, he knew it mattered less and less. His wants and desires flamed brighter with every passing instance, and his plans on achieving them grew darker and darker.

But his means to achieve them remained out of his reach, so long as the other did not know he existed.

He needed blood. Freely given or unwillingly taken, it didn't matter, so long as he had blood. But he could not get any, not here, where he had no flesh or bone or blood of his own, nothing he could touch save the backside of a mirror.

So he waited. He could do nothing else. He waited to find out what would happen and what he could do.

And he saw his other, his mirror image twin, the one crafted for him as no one else could ever be, with his arms around someone else, someone who _wasn't him_.

A mirror ghost did not hate. Or so he'd learned in the long years of his education before and since his imprisonment. Mirror ghosts didn't have emotions, not like humans did.

But when he saw that embrace, saw the passion between them, hate flowered in the mirror ghost's heart, and he swore the moment would come when he not only saw the intruder stretched out pale and cold, but he would be the one that his reflection wanted.

Him and no other. For ever.

He knew how to go about this. A mirror ghost could learn almost anything once bound to a mirror, and he'd been bound for a long, long time. Centuries, he thought. Mirrors did not judge time as mortals did.

But that was why he needed blood and he would gladly have taken every ounce from this intruder. Unfortunately, it seemed as if that weren't an option.

He rested. He didn't need it; mirror ghosts had no need to sleep. But it gave him a way to pass the time that wasn't staring at the way those two wound around one another.

When he turned to look out again, in hopes of seeing just his own image, walking around doing those strange things that he did, he saw instead only an empty apartment. He let out a long breath, one that no one else could've heard or felt or seen, and let his head touch against the mirror's back.

Alone again. He'd spent so long alone until meeting this one. There had been others who'd owned the mirror, but none of them were like him. None of them looked like he did. None of them caused the same sensations to stir around in what passed for his heart.

 _He'll come back,_ he reassured himself. _This isn't the first time._

He'd been mortal, once. He knew that people had to support themselves in any age. Those needs of food and drink weren't ones that he had anymore, but he recalled them.

Vaguely. As if they were a dream.

But that didn't mean he liked spending all these endless hours without anyone to so much as look at.

The mirror spirit had no idea of how much time passed; there weren't any ways to tell time within the mirror and without it, his vision remained limited to what was in front of him, and that didn't include a timepiece of any sort.

But he could tell when it grew darker outside and his dear reflection hadn't come home yet. He pressed his hands and fingers against the mirror yet again. Where was he? What happened? Was he all right?

He couldn't hear anything, but he could see most of the room, and when he saw a shadow moving around, his first thought was that at last, his dearly beloved had returned.

But it wasn't him. Not at all. It wasn't even the intruder who could've been there, the one that his reflection draped himself all over at every opportunity. At least if it had been him, the mirror ghost would have known the other would be coming home soon. That could be tolerated.

Intruders who weren't allowed in were not tolerated at all. He snarled, little more than the sound of glass cracking, and stared, drawing out power long unused and unneeded.

All of it went unnoticed by the intruder as he explored the apartment, taking some items and throwing them into a bag, tossing others aside carelessly.

The mirror ghost strained against the mirror with every ounce of his strength, aching to stop this blasphemy. He wasn't a fool; he knew a thief when he saw one. He'd known ways to dispose of thieves in the past, and now that he was what he was, he could do so even more.

If he could make his power work beyond the mirror. If he could just have the tiniest, most _useful_ hint of blood. A few specks would do. Just _one_ speck would do.

The thief picked up a glass, checked it out, and dropped it without thought.

The glass shattered against the floor and the thief jumped back, reaching down to knock some of it out of the way. He drew his hand up even more quickly, shaking it, lips forming a curse unheard but intense.

Two drops of blood fell on the mirror. The thief glanced up, attention caught by something, and for a moment he stood there, staring at the reflection half-hidden in the shadows.

The mirror ghost smiled, placing one hand against the mirror just where the blood drops stuck.

Finally.

* * *

 _I hate working late._ Kouji wasn't sure if he actually thought that or if he were just a walking mass of dislike for working late that didn't bother to form sentence.

Either way, he'd finally clocked out and made his way back home with a bag of takeout in one hand and his phone in the other, intent on letting Takuya know that coming over wasn't a thing and would have to wait until the weekend.

There were moments he wondered if one of them should just move in with the other. It would make visiting a lot easier, and he could really use Takuya's magic fingers on his shoulders right now.

Every thought of that vanished out of his mind when he saw the door to his apartment cracked open. He hadn't left it like that and Takuya knew to close it when he came in anyway. He didn't have anything really valuable in there, but it was just the thought of someone rifling through his possessions that infuriated him.

He took the last few steps necessary and banged the door open, a snarl on his lips, before it faded away.

Someone had been there, without a doubt. He'd left the place in more or less decent order, but now he could see his varied possessions scattered everywhere. The longer he looked, the more he thought nothing was actually missing, which confused him more and more.

Something caught the edges of his attention and he turned slowly, finding himself facing his mirror. For a moment he stared into his reflection's eyes and cold terror clamped frozen talons onto his heart.

Had it just smiled at him? When he hadn't smiled at all?

No. No, of course not. Not possible.

But what was possible, somehow, was what he saw in front of the mirror, collapsed face-down, unmoving.

Not breathing.

Kouji struggled to catch his own breath, raising his phone to make an emergency call. That was what you were supposed to do, right? When you came home and found your place ransacked…

And a dead body without a visible wound in the middle of it all.

 **To Be Continued**

 **Notes:** Kouichi, or the mirror ghost, isn't all that well-wrapped for any number of reasons. Will he improve? Only the future chapters will tell... well, I already know, but I'm not telling. ;)


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Word Count:** 1,492||Story Word Count: 4,362|| **Chapter Count:** 3/7

* * *

The mirror ghost wasn't a happy ghost. Granted, he couldn't remember what happiness truly was in the first place, but the closest he came was when he stared at Kouji and now he couldn't do that and he didn't quite understand why.

It had all started so very well. He'd disposed of the intruder and Kouji saw it. Then other people had come and taken the intruder's body away and put up some kind of restrictions around where it had been. All well and good. They'd gone away too.

But then _he_ came, the other, the interloper that held Kouji more than the mirror ghost wanted him to, and he'd taken Kouji away and _hadn't come back with him_.

Set free of the mirror as he was by the offering of blood, the ghost wafted his way through the apartment, searching for any signs of Kouji and finding none. As frustrating as it was, he couldn't leave the area, even after the blood. All he could do now was prowl a limited area around his mirror, more or less defined by the apartment itself.

But to step beyond the door and search for his Kouji? No. No, that he couldn't do. He would have to wait until Kouji returned, and he didn't know why Kouji left in the first place. The body was gone. It wouldn't bother him again.

A small thought flickered into life. Was Kouji scared of what happened? Why should he be?

 _I'd never hurt_ _ **him**_ _._ The ghost mused on this, growing angrier with every passing moment. How could Kouji fear him when he had only tried to protect him? How dare Kouji fear him? How dare Kouji seek solace in the arms of that other?

This would not be allowed to pass. Kouji would return, sooner or later. He had no choice in the matter; there were too many possessions of his that were here.

But… could that be true? Could Kouji send someone else to gather what was his and take it away to where the mirror ghost could not follow?

He tried to piece this together and he did not like the pattern that emerged. It could be done. If Kouji truly feared what happened here enough, then it could.

No. Wait. He tried to calm himself, though that wasn't an easy task. Kouji didn't know that he'd done the deed. All he knew was an intruder had been found dead, with no mortal signs of what killed him, and nothing more. The signs of a mirror ghost were not well known in these days.

Which meant Kouji could very well return. Perhaps other things might keep him away for a time, but he would be back, and then the ghost would be able to speak to him, to explain matters, and Kouji would see the light and dismiss the mortal he sported with and be with his dearly beloved mirror ghost, the shadowy image of his own heart, forever and ever.

It had been a very long span of centuries, but the ghost knew hope once more.

"So when can you go back?" Takuya wanted to know. He didn't let his arms slip from around Kouji at all. In the last handful of days, he'd taken every chance he could to make certain his boyfriend was all right.

Kouji equally took every chance to remind him that he was fine and other than having his apartment broken into and his stuff scattered around, and finding a dead body that apparently had just keeled over spontaneously, nothing bad had actually happened. Takuya didn't change his ways.

"Not until this weekend. They're going to have some people check it out first. I get to clean it up myself, though." Kouji rolled his eyes as he made himself more comfortable in Takuya's arms.

Takuya tapped him on the shoulder with his chin. "You should move in here instead."

He'd said this many times before. Kouji didn't entirely disagree with him either, but had counter-offered that Takuya should move in with him. They more or less agreed they wanted to live together for any number of reasons, but the specifics on who would move in with who, or if they'd find a different place together, gave fodder for many a conversation.

Or argument; with the two of them it was hard to tell the difference.

"I'll think about it," was all Kouji said this time. He fell silent for a few minutes. "I'm not going to stay there, though."

That didn't surprise Takuya in the slightest. He wasn't sure if he would've wanted to stay there himself if it had happened to him.

"It's pretty weird. I mean, getting robbed isn't that weird. It happens. But for someone to just drop dead like that?"

Kouji nodded, his eyes half-closed. "I think they suspect he had some kind of a heart problem or maybe a sudden aneurysm."

Takuya wasn't going to argue, mostly because he didn't know the first thing about how humans could just drop dead like that. If the police said the Grim Reaper just cut his thread, he would've called that equally plausible, and then worried on why said Grim Reaper decided to do it in Kouji's apartment.

"Maybe he saw his own reflection and it scared him to death," Takuya teased. "He was in front of that mirror of yours, right?"

"Yeah." Kouji's reply wasn't as confident or as amused as Takuya would've liked. He bent his head down to get a better look at his boyfriend.

"Kouji?" He started to ask what was wrong before halting himself. It was kind of obvious what was wrong. He just didn't know what he could do about it.

Kouji shook his head. "They found some blood on the mirror, but he'd cut himself when he broke a glass. That was the only real wound on him and it wasn't fatal. I don't care why. I just don't like it."

Takuya decided now wasn't the right time to make cracks about the mirror and whatever evil powers he still believed it had. Instead, he just curled his arms around Kouji.

"Whenever you make up your mind on where you're going, I'll be there."

"Helping to pack up?"

"I never said that!"

* * *

Kouji stood in front of his door. He'd made a point of coming here while Takuya was at work, wanting to see this place once again with his own eyes, reassuring his deepest depths that it was just his apartment, at least until he packed up and moved out.

He wasn't afraid. But the idea of remaining in a place where someone else came in without his permission and then dropped dead didn't appeal to him at all. Besides, he reminded himself, he and Takuya really had been trying to argue over who would move in with who for months now. This was just a way to end that argument once and for all.

Not exactly the way that he'd planned to end it, but ended all the same.

The police told him that it was all right for him to go back. They'd done everything that they could there and any further work would be with the body. That was fine with Kouji. He wasn't even sure if he cared enough to know what the ultimate reason was, as long as it wasn't something that would end up with him dead on the floor.

Steeling himself, he unlocked the door and stepped inside, unable to shake the frigid fingers of fear that swept down his spine as he did, recalling the last time he'd done this.

But he kept on moving, finally coming to a stop almost where he had that day. Something wasn't right, and it wasn't the absence of the body. That was _very_ right.

It clicked into him what it was: the room had been cleaned. That wasn't what was supposed to happen. The officer in charge of the case told him that nothing would be disturbed beyond removing the body itself, to preserve evidence.

But now everything had been tidied up, put back where it belonged, and even dusted and swept.

Kouji hadn't done it. He hadn't set foot back in here since the night he'd come home like this. One furious call to the police and a second to Takuya to let his boyfriend know he'd be coming over for a few days had been all he'd done before leaving the cops to their work.

 _Kouji..._

A single word, his name, whispered from every corner of the apartment. Kouji's eyes narrowed, fists clenching, head snapping first one way and then the other.

"Who said that? Where are you? Who are you?"

 _It's me...look at me..._

Kouji didn't even try to hold back a snarl. "Where are you?"

He wouldn't have called it an instinct, but he turned anyway, and found himself looking into his reflection.

A reflection that smiled back at him.

 **To Be Continued**

 **Notes:** Things are just getting started good now! THe mirror ghost is very possessive of Kouji. And is also good at housekeeping.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Word Count:** 1,460||Story Word Count: 5,822|| **Chapter Count:** 4/7

* * *

Kouji started to move away, convinced that what he saw could only be a trick of the light or the shadows. Reflections didn't _do_ things like that.

But then his reflection moved in a way that he wasn't, pressing one hand against the back of the mirror, and Kouji started to shake his head, refusing to let his mind comprehend this. Something was wrong somewhere and he didn't know what it was.

That movement was just the beginning. The image, so like him in every way save for the way it smiled and the way it was _stepping out of the mirror_ …

"What are you?" He found the question on his lips before he could even form it in his mind. "What are you doing here?"

The image blinked at him, as if it found such a question irrelevant or ridiculous.

"I came for you," it said, and it's voice was almost like this, but not quite entirely, a _mirror image_ of his voice, with accents on the wrong syllables and whispers that wove in the air like shadows and light mixed together. "I am a mirror ghost..."

"A what?" Kouji backed up again and the ghost, the thing, whatever it was, moved forward, taking the same moves that he did. "Ghosts aren't real!"

"Of course I'm real. Just because I live in the mirror world doesn't make me not real." For a brief moment Kouji could see emotions that he didn't feel right now, annoyance and frustration and he didn't even know what else, in those far too familiar eyes.

"What are you doing here?" Kouji repeated, searching around himself for his phone. He'd just had it, why didn't he have it now, he needed to call Takuya or the cops or someone.

Even better, he needed to pick up something solid and beat the hell out of this nightmare given his own flesh.

"I told you. Didn't you hear me?" That smile was and wasn't his own and Kouji had never, ever wanted a twin in his life and he didn't want one now and couldn't this thing just _go away_?

"What do you want with me?" Kouji fumbled behind himself and picked up a pillow. It wasn't the best weapon at all: it really wasn't a weapon, but it was all he could find right now. It would do for a distraction until he could get to the door.

"You're mine." Such a simple pair of words, ones that Kouji hadn't ever heard and didn't want to hear now, and why was this day so full of _no_?

Then something else clicked in his mind and he tightened his grip on his flimsy defensive pillow.

"You killed that guy, didn't you? The one who broke in here. That was you."

Again a smile that sparked like broken shards of a mirror. "He wasn't allowed in here. I defended our home." The creature tilted its head to the side. "I don't want that other one in here, either. The one you sit there with." A wave of a hand indicated the sofa. "Make him go away, Kouji." It wasn't a smile anymore but it tried to look like one and Kouji could not have understood until now how much he hated that movement of lips or the way his name sounded on another's lips. "Because if you don't, I will."

Kouji stepped forward, eyes flashing in rage, all thoughts of self-preservation forgotten at this. "Leave Takuya alone."

"If he goes away, I won't bother him." Now the creature stepped again and Kouji wondered how they'd gotten so close, it wasn't right at all, but the ghost raised up a hand and weren't ghosts supposed to not be able to touch things? Weren't they supposed to be cold? Weren't they supposed to be _wrong_?

But the mirror ghost's hand on his cheek sent warmth all through him, warmth that a part of himself he'd never dreamed existed bent into, and it was solid and real against him, and he pulled himself back, slapping the pillow toward the ghost, and shaking his head until he thought it might fall off his neck.

"Don't touch me. I hate strangers touching me!" The old words, words he'd told Takuya on their first meeting so long ago, and the creature drew back, eyebrows going up.

"I'm not a stranger. I'm you. You're me. I came for you. I've waited for you."

"You're a ghost. You're a reflection. You're a monster. You're _not me_!" Kouji spat the words out, searching for another weapon, something that could or would destroy this thing. He didn't know what would do it, but he'd throw the entire contents of his apartment at it if that would work.

Broken shards of a smile and that hand reaching out again and Kouji stumbled back farther, lost in his own apartment, unaware of where anything was that wasn't this creature that absorbed every bit of his attention, because if he took his eyes off of it, what would it do, what might it try?

Could it get out of the apartment on its own? Clearly it could escape the mirror, but could it do anything else?

"We are the same. That is what mirror ghosts are. We find the person we were meant to be with, no matter how long it takes." The creature's mouth turned downward. "That's a mirror ghost's curse."

"Curse?" Kouji didn't step any closer but that word caught his attention. He'd never believed in magic or ghosts or curses before and he wasn't sure yet if he did now. But it was hard to argue against a ghost or a monster or whatever this was when it stood right in front of him.

And couldn't curses be broken, somehow? They always could in stories.

So if he could find a way to break the curse, maybe this creature would go away.

The mirror ghost met his gaze and Kouji shivered at the hungry look there. "Do you want to know, Kouji? Do you want to know my story? Why I am a mirror ghost?" Another step closer and Kouji took one to the side.

He could feel the anger that boiled beneath the surface of this creature, whatever it was. It wasn't directed at him but he felt it anyway, rage that could not be contained but somehow existed within the form regardless.

"Tell me." Kouji wanted to know only because it would hopefully give an answer to how to get rid of this creature.

He tried to avoid the darting hand but this time it was too fast, too strong to pull away when the ghost's grip tightened around his wrist and pulled him close, stumbling over the rug.

"I'll do better. I'll show you. I can do that now. You'll know me like no one else ever has in a thousand years."

Kouji wanted to change his mind, wanted to back out and leave forever, let the ghost live in this apartment alone, but he didn't have any time anymore.

The ghost pulled him even closer, other arm sliding around Kouji's waist, and pressed their foreheads together.

"Are you ready?"

Kouji tried to shake his head. He tried to get out of this grip, but he could do nothing at all.

Soft lips pressed against his own and moved. "This is what you want. I will always give you what you want. Because you are mine. And I am yours."

Absolute, unyielding shadows wrapped themselves all around Kouji and pulled him under, the world around vanishing.

* * *

Takuya picked up his phone just as it went to 'missed call'. He rolled his eyes; Kouji would call right when Takuya couldn't answer the phone. But now he had a few minutes to try and find out what the other wanted.

Normally if he missed a call from Kouji, he got a voice message or a text of some kind, especially if Kouji called while he was at work. He let a few minutes pass, just to see if that happened this time.

But when nothing did, Takuya sent a text of his own, wanting to know just what Kouji wanted in the first place.

 _Idiot probably went back to his apartment. Without me._ That was the kind of thing Kouji would do. Getting him to accept a helping hand could be done but it required a lot of effort, mostly involved with making sure he didn't do whatever it was he had in mind without help anyway.

His text message alert beeped. He expected to see Kouji being snarky at him at best and at worst just being annoyed he hadn't picked up in the first place.

 _Kouji is mine now. Go away and never come back._ z

 **To Be Continued**

 **Note:** Wait until you see the backstory I have planned...


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Word Count:** 1,475||Story Word Count: 7,297|| **Chapter Count:** 5/7

* * *

Not enough huts for it to be called a village, but more than a handful all the same.

Too far from the larger cities for anyone who wanted more to move so long as they had someone here to take care of.

Like he did.

His mother. His grandmother. Almost unheard of to have three generations in one home when the youngest edged into adulthood, but it was what he had. And he loved them. And he took care of them.

And he never wanted them to go away. Because he had no one else.

He would not have set out for the city if he'd had a choice. If he'd kept them. If they'd stayed with him.

But they didn't. He learned this early in childhood, but not down to his bones until adulthood.

Not until the plague hit home and neighbors and everyone was sick, sick, sick, and nothing he could do could help them, and he was the only one who walked out of there alive, not having had a trace of sickness.

Words whispered on the breath of those who fell ill and could still see him working to take care of his mother and grandmother, words he didn't want to hear, but which echoed all around anyway.

Cursed. Bewitched. Ally to demons.

Demons brought sickness. If he wasn't sick, the only explanation that they had was that he'd made a bargain with them to save his own life.

More rumors ran as more people died. He'd paid for their lives with his own. He was the reason for the plague.

If there had been more survivors, he might well have been run out of the area. But there weren't survivors, except for him. After a horrid length of time – he never knew how long it was from the first hints of sickness to the day he walked from end to end of the line of huts and saw nothing but bodies raddled by disease – he knew he had to leave. There wasn't anything there for him anymore.

He made his way to the nearest city, and then the one after that, and after that as well. He wanted something: the reason he hadn't sickened and died. No one could tell him. Many threw things at him when he told his story, demanding that he take his 'plague demons' somewhere else.

Once he had to escape from jail, from people who insisted he should be burned to cleanse the land from his infection.

But with time and experience came wisdom, or at least the ability to choose his words, and he came to a place that not only had a doctor in search of an apprentice, but he knew that here, he should not speak about what happened in his old home.

Here, he only told his new teacher that he didn't want to speak of the past, that those he loved were no more.

It wasn't a lie. He didn't like lying. But with a downcast look and hidden tears, he convinced his new teacher not to ask _those_ questions about his past.

And so he learned. And so he tried to forget what had happened, and failed so miserably, because every time he closed his eyes, he could see his mother and his grandmother looking at him, wanting to know how dare he live when they hadn't.

And sometimes he thought he saw another face, a reflection of his own, and heard the same words, but they made no sense at all from this face because why would he hate himself for living?

He threw himself into his studies in an attempt to wear himself out and perhaps not dream those nightmares any more. It worked.

For a time.

Until he was on a trip to a bookstore for his teacher and there he found a book purporting to reveal the great secrets of magic and how one could use it for any means one desired.

He could not forget the jeers and taunts and accusations of those who sought to blame him for what happened, how they insisted that he'd caused the plague or protected himself from it. He found himself bringing the book home, wanting to know if such a thing were even possible.

Even if it weren't, it would make no difference, he knew. But he wanted to know if perhaps he somehow had without realizing it.

So now he divided his time between studying medicine and studying magic and keeping it all organized in his head wasn't even close to being easy but he did his best anyway because what else was he going to do?

And he tried little things about magic, like finding his way home when he got lost – something that still happened in the city, because it was a huge mess of muddled up streets and even those people who lived there since childhood didn't always know their way around and for someone like him it was even harder.

But nowhere in that book did he find anything about avoiding getting sick when everyone around you fell prey to it.

So he looked for other books of magic, slowly building a network of people who searched for new books for him, who aided in getting ingredients when he wanted to try a new spell, and who watched out for those people who looked for practitioners of magic in order to bring them before a judge.

That last was what tripped him up in the end, for there were those who insisted they would help magicians avoid prosecution, while in reality searching out those who learned forbidden knowledge and having them arrested.

He thought he'd been careful. He thought he'd chosen his allies well.

Until the day when he'd been in the middle of a spell, something that would enchant a mirror to give him the ability to view events at a distance – a little thought of his, nothing more – and fists pounded on the door, knocking it inward, and before he could leave, his neighbors were there, seizing him, and his teacher the doctor was there, full of rage and fury at how he'd been 'betrayed'…

The trial was quick and brutal. He wasn't allowed to speak in his own defense. His books and projects said it all for him, or so they claimed. What other use could what he had be than foul wicked sorcery?

No, he wanted to say, I only wanted answers, I only wanted to know why I was spared, why I did not die, why they died and I didn't, and there were always more questions and no answers, this wasn't wrong…

But no one asked and no one cared and in the end judgment was passed: since he wished to see events he would not be there for, his essence, his soul, would be trapped within the mirror itself for all time, unable to view anything but what was in front of him, unable to hear, until the day would come when he would let himself out by the power of his own blood.

His own teacher sealed him into it, and he wanted to scream treachery himself, but the gag prevented him and the web of magic around him tore away any words, and pain racked him from head to foot and he didn't even know his own _name_ anymore, and he could see only a drape of shadows.

There was no time and the pain ebbed, bit by bit, but time passed even if he wasn't aware of it.

Perhaps if he'd been more aware of it, things would've been different.

The drape remained over the mirror and he could see nothing but the shadows cast by it. He could hear nothing at all. There might as well not have even been a world outside of the mirror.

When he could see again, he hardly understood what he saw. People in clothes he'd never seen before, a place that he didn't understand, and he tried to figure it all out with what little he could catch and whatever thoughts came trickling in.

He learned what he was. He learned what he needed to do. He learned what he would have to have.

And those thoughts and desires wrapped all around him and became part of him until he knew nothing else and would not have cared for anything else no matter what.

And then he saw him: the other one. The half of him that he'd been missing and never fully understood that he'd missed until he was there. Until they could be together at last, until the potential for his curse being broken and his soul being freed hovered so close, so very close…

He could not be freed by any save himself.

Minamoto Kouji was him.

Or close enough to count.

 **To Be Continued**

 **Notes:** So that is Kouichi/the mirror ghost's background, in a summed up and somewhat nonsensical viewpoint (since Kouji learns it through him and Kouichi's not exactly sane after a few centuries of being imprisoned. Two more chapters to go, and yes, I do know how it will end.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Word Count:** 1,496||Story Word Count: 8,793|| **Chapter Count:** 6/7

* * *

Kouji gulped in air in large, hurtful pants, aware of cold sweat all over his body, and a far too warm hand resting on the back of his neck. He wanted to shudder, but he couldn't bring himself to move that much.

A second hand reached around, holding a glass of water to his lips. He didn't hesitate to slurp the contents down, despite how much it hurt.

"I'm sorry, Kouji," a voice murmured into his ear. Not a voice that made him comfortable but he knew who it was. The other. The mirror image. The mirror _ghost_. "There wasn't any other way that I could show you about me."

Hair brushed across the back of Kouji's neck. The other was.. shaking his head? Kouji didn't like the idea of feeling this ghost so close to him. But he still couldn't move.

"I still… don't understand…." He wanted to. The need for that knowledge burned in every part of him and he could think of very little else besides the ghost and the way that the sofa felt underneath him. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why...would you do all of that? What did you want from it?" Kouji tried to wrap his mind around it all and the harder he tried, the less he could understand.

"I told you. I wanted to know why I survived and they didn't." Again that hand on the back of his neck, possessive and comforting in a strange mix that made Kouji dislike it even more. "But that doesn't really matter anymore. That's the past. What I want now is _you_."

Before Kouji could shape the words to ask why, the answer came.

"You're me, Minamoto Kouji. We are the same, just born into two different bodies, centuries apart."

Pressure against the back of his neck. Pressure he'd felt before, from Takuya.

The mirror ghost kissed him. Kissed the back of his neck.

"Don't… don't do that." Kouji tried to move, but his arms and legs refused to work properly. From what little he could see, he wasn't tied down or held in any way. He just couldn't get his body to work right.

"You don't have to worry," the ghost murmured in a way Kouji thought was supposed to be soothing. "You and I are one. We're meant to be together. I made certain your _former lover_ knew about that."

In all of his life, Kouji hadn't heard someone spit out words with that much hate coated over them. He tried again to move and managed to get himself up a little more. "What did you do to Takuya?" If the ghost had hurt him…

"I only told him the truth. That you are mine now. He'll go away." The ghost petted Kouji's neck and shoulder. "I can go anywhere with you. I _will_ go anywhere with you. I'm not bound to the mirror anymore." Slender fingers moved their way down Kouji's shoulders to stroke his back. "I'm bound to you. I'll go where you do. You'll never be alone again. You'll always have _me_. Won't that be wonderful?"

Kouji bit his lip as hard as he could, tasting the metallic copper of blood.

"No, it won't!"

"You're lying," the ghost sing-songed. Another kiss, a bit farther down. "You might not know it but you are. You can't get rid of me. Even breaking the mirror wouldn't change anything. You are _mine_." He paused for a moment or two, as if thinking something over. "And I'm yours. Why would you want anyone else? I can do anything that he can do, and do it better, too." A low laugh that sounded too much like Kouji's own for Kouji's comfort. "I've seen a lot from the other side of the mirror. We can go there, too, if you like. If I like. The mirror world only has me in it… but it can have you, too."

Kouji could not have said 'no' fast enough, but the mirror ghost seemed to have latched onto the idea.

"No one would ever bother us there. I think that would be a fun place to go."

Kouji grabbed for words, when he wanted to grab for the nearest heavy object and beat this reflection until it wasn't him anymore. "You've been there all this time and you want to stay away from people now that you can do other things?"

Silence for a moment or two. "What do you mean?"

Kouji struggled to wrap himself around the words and hoped that they worked. "You spent all that time in there and all you want is to go back? Even if I were with you, that's all you want to do? A whole world with just two people?"

"You are my world," the mirror ghost murmured. "What else do I need but you?"

"A life?"

Both of them looked up at that, with Kouji wincing every moment that he did. But when he saw who spoke, he tried to sit up even more, despite how much it ached.

"Takuya!"

Takuya took two steps into the room, eyes going between the two of them. "All right," he said at last. "Who the heck is this and what's going on here?" He waved the phone in his hand. "And what do you mean Kouji is 'yours' now? You don't own people!"

The not-Kouji – Takuya couldn't think of what else to call him - sneered at him.

"He's _mine_! I told you that already. You shouldn't have bothered coming here." He laid his head on the back of Kouji's neck, arms going around him in a way that Takuya knew Kouji wouldn't like if he had a say in the matter. "All mine. Forever."

"No." Kouji tried to push back but he didn't have the kind of leverage necessary to get a really good push going. "Takuya, be careful. I don't know what he can do."

"Kouji, why don't you want me?" The not-Kouji wanted to know, tightening his grip so Kouji couldn't get away from him. "You saw me. You saw what happened. I waited for you to set me free for _so_ long."

"I didn't set you free. I didn't even know about you!" Kouji insisted. Takuya took another step closer and not-Kouji glared harder at him.

"Stay out of this. This is not your problem."

"With the way you're wrapped around my boyfriend? Yeah, it is my problem. Kouji, who is this guy? What does he want?" Takuya didn't take his eyes off of either of them. "I mean, aside from the obvious."

"Short answer, he's a ghost that was trapped in the mirror. And he thinks we have some kind of mystical connection and we should go off to get married or something."

Not-Kouji kept his arms around Kouji. "We don't have to get married. We are one regardless."

"He's also not the best put together guy in the world."

Takuya couldn't help but snort at that. "I noticed. Does he have a name?" He didn't think it was really right to keep calling him 'not-Kouji' when there could be something nastier to yell.

"I don't know." Kouji wriggled around a little more to stare up at his double. "Do you have a name?"

"I had a name. I don't remember it anymore." Not-Kouji's eyes narrowed, throwing a glance toward the mirror. "Being locked up and not able to talk to _anyone_ for a few centuries makes you _forget things_."

"Yeah, like basic human manners?" Takuya wasn't sure what he felt about all of this, but since not-Kouji wasn't actively hurting anyone at the moment and wasn't doing anything more to Kouji than holding him – and the way Kouji looked he probably could've used the help – he wasn't going to throw him out of the window.

Not yet, anyway.

Kouji wriggled up more, managing to get himself sitting up. Somewhere along the way, the atmosphere had changed. He stared down at his reflection, who looked up at him.

 _He's been alone for who knows how long,_ Takuya realized. _Of course he's going to cling to Kouji. Kouji's the only thing that looks like he does. That's even close to anything good he knows._

He inched closer, moving one hand to catch Kouji's attention. "You know, I don't want you guys to go flying off to who knows where, but maybe he can… stick around for a while? Learn what the world's like now? Maybe get a name of his own?"

Kouji said nothing for the first few moments before looking back down. "I'm not going to leave here with just you. I've got a life here."

The other started to open his mouth, but Kouji laid his free hand over it.

"If you want to stay with me, then we're staying here. In the city. And that's it. Yes or no?"

"You are mine, Minamoto Kouji," the mirror ghost murmured. "And if this is the only way I can keep you, then I will do it."

 **To Be Continued**

 **Notes:** Down to one chapter to go.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Word Count:** 1,206||Story Word Count: 9,999|| **Chapter Count:** 7/7

* * *

If that was the only way to have Kouji, he would submit to it. He'd spoken no lie about that. He wasn't certain if he could lie to Kouji. He'd never tried. He had no intentions of trying.

But like a mirror, truth had many reflections and many forms.

This wasn't the only way that he could have Kouji and he had no intentions whatsoever of just letting that _Takuya_ person lurk around where he was neither wanted or needed. Kouji just didn't realize that he only needed _him_ yet.

The idea was a new one, he knew. It would take time for it to grow with Kouji. But he would be there to make certain that it did.

He'd lost a huge portion of his memories of magic during his centuries trapped in the mirror. He couldn't get them all back, no matter how hard he tried.

But he didn't need all of them. He just needed the ones that would serve him best right now.

It would take time. He didn't care. He'd waited all this time until he'd met Kouji and he could wait a little longer. He wanted them to trust him. He wanted them to think that he accepted what they wanted of him.

Some of what they wanted wasn't so bad. It was nice to have a name again, especially since Kouji was the one who came up with it.

"We do look like each other," he said, "and you came first, kind of. So, you should be Kouichi."

Takuya didn't like it. In his opinion, the mirror ghost came second anyway. But since there wasn't any way he'd refer to the ghost as 'Kouji' because of that, 'Kouichi' was the only one they could agree on.

Kouichi liked his new name. It made him feel even more of a part of Kouji.

How much it annoyed Takuya just made it better.

Kouichi didn't want his dear Kouji and Takuya to have any time at all together. That was time Kouji could be spending with _him_. But he'd learned enough over his years in the mirror to know that just interrupting them or being around when they wanted to be alone wouldn't work for long. Kouji wasn't stupid. He knew exactly how Kouichi felt. How could he not? Not only were they same in two bodies, but Kouichi made it plain even before Takuya barged in to interrupt everything.

Kouji was his. Kouichi would never, ever let that go. And he was Kouji's.

"I'm not going to sleep on the couch by myself," Kouichi stated. For one thing, it was too close to the mirror. He was free of it now, could go in and out as he chose, but he didn't want to stay there within sight of his former prison for hours and hours on his own.

Kouji sighed. "This is a one-bedroom apartment. I don't have anywhere else you can sleep, and Takuya's staying over tonight."

Kouichi didn't pout. He didn't need to. He just looked away, shoulders slumping. "Oh." He knew what they'd be up to in the bedroom. Or what they _wanted_ to be up to. He wasn't going to let that happen if he could stop it.

"Does he have to?" Kouichi knew he didn't. Takuya just didn't trust _him_ around Kouji.

Probably wise, at least from Takuya's point of view.

"Kouichi." Kouji sounded tired and it hadn't been that long at all since this little farce began. "Why don't you go out for a walk or something? See the city a little. You can do that, can't you?"

Of course he could. Freedom meant freedom, after all. And now another idea sparked.

"All right. I'll do that." He got to his feet, reaching for the jacket Kouji provided. All of his clothes came from Kouji's wardrobe, since they were a perfect match.

He liked the idea of wearing Kouji's clothes, too. They always smelled so good, so much like Kouji himself.

If Takuya thought he would ever give up his Kouji, then Takuya and Kouji both had a great deal to learn.

* * *

Kouichi made his way through the streets of the market. It wasn't like what he'd known the last time that he'd walked the world, but a marketplace was a marketplace, and he rather enjoyed learning the ways of this one.

Kouji had insisted on giving him some money when he left for his 'night walk'. Kouichi suspected he felt more than a little guilty over making him go out at all instead of staying safe together. That was fine. Kouji would learn, eventually.

Kouichi had plans to _make_ him learn, whether he wanted to or not.

He didn't have much money, not compared to some of the prices that he saw for some of what he wanted. But he hadn't recovered what he had of his memories and magic for nothing. If he wanted something, he could have it, and no one would know the difference. Even the devices that shopkeepers put on their wares to prevent theft couldn't stand up to him. It required only one such instance for him to figure out how to denature those anyway.

He made a point to avoid that shop thereafter, though. He didn't like the way the proprietor looked at him.

But he gathered up what he needed, or at least some of what he needed. He couldn't get it all in one night. Magic might be alien to this time, but he didn't want anyone getting any ideas as he gathered his ingredients.

He especially didn't want anyone talking to Kouji about this shopping trip. He kept his head down and a cap Kouji lent him pulled low over his head, but there could be someone who mistook him for his dear Kouji anyway. He didn't want that.

He and Kouji would disappear without a trace and not even Takuya would be able to find them.

Of course, if the second part of his scheme worked as well as the first one would, then there would be no worry whatsoever. Takuya wouldn't even remember there was a Kouji to find in the first place.

* * *

"I don't trust him."

"You think I do?" Kouji shook his head, staring a bit warily at the windows. Kouichi roamed out there somewhere. Kouji didn't like having him unsupervised, but he wanted _some_ time with Takuya after all of this. He leaned his head against his lover's shoulder. "But we know he's going to come back." Nothing would stop that, he knew.

He wasn't sure at all if this deal, such as it was, could actually work out. Sure, Kouichi _seemed_ agreeable to it, but there wasn't any way to be sure what was going on in his mind.

All he could do was hope that either Kouichi somehow met someone else who would catch his attentions – hopefully in a healthier way than he currently expressed towards Kouji himself – or he'd get fascinated by something else and decide to move out on his own to explore it.

If it were going to happen, it wouldn't be tonight. Not when he heard the apartment door open and Kouichi's footsteps moving in.

No, not tonight.

But soon.

He hoped.

 **The End**

 **Notes:** End of the first story. It seems there will be at least one more. Kouichi has ~plans~. And so do I.


End file.
